Jujupilote wrote:
You can’t have an FAA commercial certificate without the IR.
That’s not how I understand FAR 61.129. Also, among the requirements for the ATPL in FAR 61.153 it even says you must have a “commercial pilot certificate with instrument rating”. Why mention IR separately if you necessarily have one when you have the CPL?
It would be unreasonable to demand that a pilot doing aerial work such as crop dusting have an IR.
On the other hand the US does not seem to have the ATPL(H) without IR.
An FAA Commercial Pilot Certificate is an upgrade to the FAA Private Pilot Certificate, requiring increased airmanship and allowing the pilot to be legally paid for e.g, corporate flying, banner towing, parachute ops etc. It has nothing to do with the FAA Instrument Rating, which can be added to either a Private Pilot or Commercial Pilot certificate.
Jujupilote wrote:
You can’t have an FAA commercial certificate without the IR.
Nonsense. You can, but are limited to certain operations.
Both pilot and aircraft were instrument rated, but the operator had a VFR-only restriction on their part 135 cert. Going along the coast would have been possible, the ceilings – while ill-defined – were around 1200 – 1500 ft. However, there was a TFR over Pt. Mugu Naval Air Base which would have made a transit to Camarillo tricky / impossible. Crossing the Santa Monica mountains was not possible in VFR. Hence the choice to fly IFR, as in I Follow Roads. He had to hold outside the KBUR C airspace for a transit, as they had departing traffic and then got cleared SVFR around the northern parts of both the KBUR and the KVNY airspace. The numbers you hear in the recording are freeways, known to everyone who flies here. The comment about ‘too low’ refers to radar / comms services in that area, which don’t work below around 2000 or 2500 ft.
Las Virgenes Road runs from the coast at Malibu north across the Santa Monica Mountains and frequently acts a funnel for the marine layer to spill over into the western end of the San Fernando valley. What also happens there is that the terrain rises to the west, so fog can ‘pool’ in that area. From what we know, they flew right into that ‘pool’ of fog.
You can have CPL without IR, many did that in the past (Peter?) especially for upgrading FAA61.75 PPL to standalone CPL
But I don’t think having an instrument rating is good or bad in these situations, the relevant facts are VFR only ops & VIP pressure and potentially some unexpected weather, VIP pressure is the big one as honestly for a helicopter is its easy to call it off compared to fix wings…
You can have an FAA CPL without the FAA IR, but it is obviously of limited use. You can do crop spraying and such like…
I did my IR in 2006 and the CPL in 2007 so unfortunately I am not a living example 
An FAA ATP is a CPL/IR with one more written exam (each FAA license or rating has just one written exam), more hours requirements (1500hrs with 100hrs night) and a very tight checkride. This is different from the Euro ATPL which is “given” to a CPL/IR after logging 500hrs in a multi pilot cockpit.
My IR examiner – a then famous guy called John Walkup – in the US told me the CFII (which this heli pilot had, reportedly) is the hardest one of them all. He said the ATP checkride is a “walk in the park” compared to the CFII checkride.
With a CPL without IR you can only carry passengers within a 50nm radius. Like my sightseeing flights I did on Kaua’i. :) (I did have an IR, though.) Another limitation is day-flights only. That’s FAR 61.133.
In other words, an IR is highly desireable as a commercial pilot in the USA.
A Hawaii restriction/exception (you don’t have to do cross-country to get PPL there 
)?
Ah no, the 50nm restriction for CPL without IR is for the entire USA. But you’re right there are some special rules for the PPL course. I only mentioned it because sightseeing flights is a job you could do with CPL and without IR.
A genuine question in relation to European licensing – is there a reason why somebody might tend to link the FAA Commercial Pilot Certificate and FAA Instrument Rating other than they both being prerequisites (except in some limited cases) for attaining an FAA Airline Transport Pilot Certificate?
In the US, the Commercial Certificate is traditionally viewed as extra training in the basics beyond the Private. You can then do a fairly wide range of commercial piloting – anything that doesn’t involve scheduled service or a lot of people carrying (FAA rules apparently changed in the 90s but there are grandfathered FAA instructors out there without an IR.) Or maybe you do it to demonstrate a higher level of piloting skill to yourself or others in spite of having no intent to make money flying – I’ve been encouraged to do the Commercial Certificate that reason, and my aircraft capability and interests are not in flying for money or IFR flying.
From all the training i watched on youtube, and many flight school websites, the IR is always done before and described as a prerequisite for the CPL.
A exemple here : https://www.learntoflysmart.com/
